For Farah, It's All About the Hate

Joseph Farah’s Monday column is quite revealing, I think, though not in the way he intended. “Whom does Obama hate most,” the headline asks. What it reveals is how much the idea of hate and the degree to which it should influence incredibly important political decisions is central to Farah’s view of the world.

Whom does Barack Obama hate most?

How much does he detest a nuclear-armed Iran that constantly threatens its neighbors with annihilation?

Not enough to prevent him from continuing negotiations.

Make a note of that.

Okay. Note made.

How much does he detest the regime in Syria, which only a week or two ago he was prepared to attack for what he claims was the use of chemical weapons?

Not enough to prevent him from continuing negotiations.

Make a note of that, too.

Duly noted, again.

How much does he detest Republicans in Congress who recognize the U.S. government is going off the fiscal cliff with out-of-control borrowing and spending and want to place implantation of a mammoth new, broadly unpopular entitlement program, Obamacare, on hold before raising the debt limit once again?

Enough to refuse to negotiate.

I think it’s clear whom Obama hates the most. Don’t you?

No. I think it’s clear that you think hatred should be the key factor in deciding these complex questions, which is, to put it bluntly, incredibly stupid. And it demonstrates perfectly why people with your mindset should be kept as far away from power as possible. Farah thinks Obama should “negotiate” with the Republicans — meaning he should agree to scuttle the signature achievement of his presidency — because he hates the health care reform bill. But why on earth should or would Obama agree to that? The Republicans simply don’t have the votes to pull this off. They have no leverage, but they’re too busy playing to their base to care about things like reality.

Now, why would or should Obama negotiate with Syria and Iran? Do I really need to spell that out? Because negotiated agreements that resolve the disputes would be far better than launching more wars that kill untold numbers of people and bankrupt the country even more, and that could very well spark a broader regional war with devastating consequences for all involved (except the weapons makers, of course; they win every war). Farah is simply blinded by his hatred of Obama, and his bizarre belief that hatred should guide our policy.

“Hmmm…negotiate with armed psychopaths who wish to rain fire down on their own people and neighbors, or negotiate with toothless psychopaths who wish to rain fire on their own people and neighbors. Geeze, I am in a pickle!”

Wait. If Obama treated the GOP like Farrah wants him to treat Syria and Iran, shouldn’t he be walking around with a swagger, pausing only to randomly and preemptively punch them in the face? (“Senator Reid’s flurry of punches and his trademark, ‘I got your closure right here’ was followed by president Obama, who remarked on the Senate impasse ‘Negotiate this’ after nailing Senator McConnell with a final, brutal, haymaker.”)

dingojack

“For Farah, It’s All About the Hate ”

Well duuuuuuuuhhh!!!

(Film at eleven)

@@ Dingo

dmcclean

Spot on as usual, modusoperandi, but you probably meant cloture, not closure.

It should also be noted that negotiations are more likely to yield fruitful results than with the republicans.

What is the difference between the republicans and Iran? One is dominated by a cabal unhinged xenophobic nihilists taking a scorched earth approach to the world. The other is Iran.

StevoR : Free West Papua, free Tibet, let the Chagossians return!

Because negotiated agreements that resolve the disputes would be far better than launching more wars that kill untold numbers of people and bankrupt the country even more, and that could very well spark a broader regional war with devastating consequences for all involved

Problem is that’s only true if Syria and Iran (and others, any others, really)can be trusted and are amendable to making rational, reasonable deals that avoid such conflicts instead of being unwilling and unable to seriously negotiate in good faith and instead just using the talks as a stalling tactic whilst they secretly continuing preparing for war incl. aquireing WMDs secretly.

*IF* war is inevitable because the Iranian and Syrian dictators have determined they want it just on *their terms* not ours – such talks will be fruitless and have worse consequences than starting the inevitable war on *our terms* now.

So, question is do we think Iran and Syria are serious about negotatiion and aren’t just stalling for time while they ready their forces?

I don’t know the answer to this question and think its a very hard thing to properly determine.

I hope we get it right for all our sakes.

As for Obama being motivated mainly by hatred – nah, that’s just too silly to consider for more than a nano-second really. (I’m no Obama fan but I don’t starmonster him either.)

StevoR : Free West Papua, free Tibet, let the Chagossians return!

@5. d.c.wilson :

What is the difference between the republicans and Iran? One is dominated by a cabal unhinged xenophobic nihilists taking a scorched earth approach to the world. The other is Iran.

..which is different from the first how precisely? They also deny the Shoah and the existence of gays in their country at all plus they think they’ll be rewarded with endless sex and gluttony in their mythical muslim paradise for blowing up themselves and the world and ushering in the Hidden Imam or some such shit? Is that the difference you mean?

Because the theocratic Islamist terrorist sponsoring dictatorship of Iran is bleedingly obviously far worse than any political party in a democratic free republic to anyone with any skerrick of sense or proportion.

colnago80

Because negotiated agreements that resolve the disputes would be far better than launching more wars that kill untold numbers of people and bankrupt the country even more, and that could very well spark a broader regional war with devastating consequences for all involved

Relative to Rouhani, we should note that he is a figurehead who has no authority to negotiate anything. The real dictator of Iran is the Ayatollah Khamenei, who calls the shots. Those who counsel negotiating with Khamenei remind me of the appeasers in the 1930 who counseled negotiating with Frankenberger. How did that work out for Neville Chamberlain.

dmcclean“Spot on as usual, modusoperandi, but you probably meant cloture, not closure.”

I probably did.

colnago80“Those who counsel negotiating with Khamenei remind me of the appeasers in the 1930 who counseled negotiating with Frankenberger. How did that work out for Neville Chamberlain.”

And you remind me of John Bolton. (“That country over there is bad.” “Did you try punching it in the face?” “My sink is clogged.” “Did you try punching it in the face?” “My wife is asking me if she looks fat in that dress.” “Did you try punching it in the face?”)

BATNA with respect to Syria and Iran is war to a greater or lesser degree. BATNA with respect to the Republicans’ effort to defund ACA is that the Republicans end up looking like fools and ACA still gets funded.

longstreet63

@SteveoR: “Problem is that’s only true if Syria and Iran (and others, any others, really) can be trusted and are amendable to making rational, reasonable deals that avoid such conflicts instead of being unwilling and unable to seriously negotiate in good faith and instead just using the talks as a stalling tactic whilst they secretly continuing preparing for war incl. aquireing WMDs secretly.”

It’s hilarious that somebody always says things like this. It seems to be rooted in some kind of “They don’t care about human life like we do” trope, ala 1930’s ‘Yellow Peril’.

Suppose, yes, that Iran or Syria (? seriously? Assad can’t even control his own country.) is just negotiating with us just so they can get WMDs.

So what, exactly? You think they’re going to immediately launch their newly-minted arsenal at New York or Tel Aviv?

Yeah, and then what happens?

Two buildings in New York get destroyed and we trashed Afghanistan and, just because it looked at us funny. Iraq. And that was not even a government action.

What do you think we’ll do with a nuclear first strike on us or our allies?

Remember formal declarations of war? We’d have one of those in a day (Unless Republicans filibuster it cvuz Obamacare, of course.) Then we would turn the offending country into glass. And nobody would say a word.

And no matter how Muslim-y you think the Mullahs are, I assure you they didn’t get where they are by starry-eyed optimism. They can look over and see the wreckage of Iraq and Afghanistan on either side.

They do not want to end up as cell phone footage of an execution.

WMDs have precisely one use: to deter attack. Once used, however, they become an incentive to attack. That is why they only ever get used when things are presumed to be as bad as it can get, and often, not even then. Because martyrs are never the ones giving the orders.

So, TLDR: yes, negotiate. Time they play for is still time. When the time expires, we will do most of the killing, not them.

Chiroptera

Holy shit! Someone really brought up the analogy with Hitler? When it’s the United States that actually invaded a nation in the region without cause?

Wait. If Obama treated the GOP like Farrah wants him to treat Syria and Iran, shouldn’t he be walking around with a swagger, pausing only to randomly and preemptively punch them in the face? (“Senator Reid’s flurry of punches and his trademark, ‘I got your closure right here’ was followed by president Obama, who remarked on the Senate impasse ‘Negotiate this’ after nailing Senator McConnell with a final, brutal, haymaker.”)

“Whom” requires a preposition. From whom, for whom, with whom, by whom, toward whom. Drives me nuts when people use “whom” incorrectly.

As for the answer to the malformed question, I hope it’s “Republican wankers”.

dogmeat

Okay, we’ve got

“they can’t be trusted,”

a Godwin,

“just preparing for war on their terms“,

and an “inevitable war.”

Now all I need is “six well placed 15 megaton warheads” and I’ll have islamophobe BINGO!

uzza

Cynic @ 99 Who does Obama hate most is correct, but not because of prepositions, it’s how the word is declined. Whom is the accusative case. The word who is here being used in the nominative, the form of which is who.

StevoR : Free West Papua, free Tibet, let the Chagossians return!

@16. d.c.wilson : SteveR: I guess you never heard of a joke before.

Oh I’ve heard of jokes plenty of times, just didn’t realise your comment was supposed to be one because y’know it was achingly unfunny and even if it was a joke the wrongness there needed correcting in my veiw..

@17. colnago80 : “Re StevoR @ #7 It’s the 12th Imam.”

It is? Cheers. Thought I remember hearing something about different Islamist sects with “Eleveners” and “Twelvers” and some think its the final rapture-equivalent Imam thingy is the 11th and others the 12th and they do the usual fighting and killing each other over that.

Unless I was getting confused with the different Muslim sects arguing and killing each other over the average age of the “prophet”‘s young “wives” or something instead?

@20. dogmeat : “Now all I need is “six well placed 15 megaton warheads” and I’ll have islamophobe BINGO!”

Actually if you get six nuke warheads on you you”ll be many times over dispersed puffs of radioactive vapour technically speaking. (Now *that’s* a joke – not serious for the hard of humour here.)

Also, FYI, listing points is not the same as rebutting them.

Ichthyic

shouldn’t he be walking around with a swagger, pausing only to randomly and preemptively punch them in the face?

frankly, yes.

so should the remaining sane members of congress.

so should you.

so should I.

enough of this crap already. why is everyone LETTING these idiots drag America into the ground?

Nobody can cross swords with the money, that’s why. Haven’t you ever wondered why the rest of congress doesn’t just go on public record calling these idiots out for what they are doing and saying?

it’s because they too have a lot to lose if things like real centralized health care becomes a reality in the states.

it’s all about the money.

StevoR : Free West Papua, free Tibet, let the Chagossians return!

@13. Chiroptera :

When it’s the United States that actually invaded a nation in the region without cause?

Bzzt. Major history fail.

The USA has never invaded anywhere without a cause even if its perhaps NOT a cause you agree with or support. In the case of the Iraq war there were at least three major causes (no not oil, they could always buy that easily enough, duh!) :

1) preventing Saddam Hussein from getting WMDs, (he was suspected of having these already, he was known to be – and was – seeking them. Plus had a record of using them in the past eg. against the Kurds.)

and 3) enforcing UN Security Council Resolutions 678 and 687 to use all necessary means to compel Iraq to comply with its international obligations.

Note with that last point too that it wasn’t just the US of A involved but also other nations of the Coalition of the Willing incl. Britain and Australia among others.

(Bonus note the Iraq war was actually successful in those aims too.)

Now I ‘spose you can argue how valid you personally consider these casus belli causes – hey, maybe you just don’t care about Saddam’s human rights abuses, his sponsorship of Hamas &Islamic Jihad terrorism etc .. and his sons (Uday & Qusay’s) penchant for rape, kidnap, torture and murder and so forth. But you can’t deny there are there.

Hmm.. Invading a nation in the M.E./SW Asia region without cause eh? Perhaps you are actually very confused and really thinking of the massed Arab armies attacking Israel in 1968 – oh & in 1956 and 1968 and 1973 et cetera ad infinitum – instead? 😉

StevoR : Free West Papua, free Tibet, let the Chagossians return!

@12. longstreet63 :

@SteveoR: “Problem is that’s only true if Syria and Iran (and others, any others, really) can be trusted and are amendable to making rational, reasonable deals that avoid such conflicts instead of being unwilling and unable to seriously negotiate in good faith and instead just using the talks as a stalling tactic whilst they secretly continuing preparing for war incl. aquireing WMDs secretly.”

It’s hilarious that somebody always says things like this. It seems to be rooted in some kind of “They don’t care about human life like we do” trope, ala 1930′s ‘Yellow Peril’.

Wrong again – the Arabs really don’t value human life least of all their own. No that’s not racist or bigoted, not based on “Islamophobic” its what they themselves say many times for instance as recorded here :

(Our Jihadiist army is) “”..an army of men that love death as you love life.”

– 7th century Muslim Commander

“”The Jews love life, so that is what we shall take away from them. We are going to win, because they love life and we love death.”

– Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah leader

dingojack

Oh Stevo you’re such a card. Your points don’t need to refuted*, they simply need to be pointed to and laughed at**.

a) To stop Sadddam getting WMDs eh? – too late. He had ’em and had already used ’em. How do we know? Because documents explaining who sold the precursors to him, who trained him how to make them, and who trained him how to use them, have been declassified. Wanna guess who his ‘dealer’ was? Hmmm***.

I’ll leave the rest of your ‘points’ to others to debunk (again).

Dingo

——–

* for the umpteenth time I might add

** yes, that sentence ended with a preposition, deal with it grammar nazis

*** and Syria and Iran can’t be trusted , eh?

StevoR : Free West Papua, free Tibet, let the Chagossians return!

Continued @ 12. longstreet63 :

It’s hilarious that somebody always says things like this. It seems to be rooted in some kind of “They don’t care about human life like we do” trope

No. Its rooted in reality. It is exactly how they think and, yes, we find it strange because it is utterly alien and inhuman to our way of thinking and our culture but second nature to theirs.

What rock have you been living under for all these decades to have missed the terrible history of Jihadist homicide-suicide bombers and their atrocities and the fact that these brain-washed Jihadist killesr are idolised by the Islamic world especially in the war torn regions where their cowardly acts of murdering unarmed civilians are applauded on the (Arab) streets and the various dictators queue up to pay their families money and praise?

What does it tell us that in the negotations the Hams and other Palestinian terrorists themselves rated thelife of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit (?spelling?) as worth hundreds of their men being released from jail? The the value they themselve shave set, they Arabs side has made it crsytal clear that no, they don’t careabout their lives or others or theysimply wouldn’t do the stuff they do.

One last quote for you to contemplate before I rush off for now :

“When peace comes, we will perhaps in time be able to forgive the Arabs for killing our sons, but it will be harder for us to forgive them for having forced us to kill their sons.”

– Isreali PM Golda Meir, Press conference in London (1969), as quoted in ‘A Land of Our Own : An Oral Autobiography’ (1973) edited by Marie Syrkin, p. 242

An Israeli leader in war and struggle against the Arabs trying to massacre her, her family, her nation and all her people actually values those Arab lives much more than they do.

Fact, not soft-hearted and also soft-headed error. Sad but true.

Suppose, yes, that Iran or Syria (? seriously? Assad can’t even control his own country.) is just negotiating with us just so they can get WMDs.

So what, exactly? You think they’re going to immediately launch their newly-minted arsenal at New York or Tel Aviv?

Yeah, and then what happens?

Two buildings in New York get destroyed and we trashed Afghanistan and, just because it looked at us funny. Iraq. And that was not even a government action.

What do you think we’ll do with a nuclear first strike on us or our allies?

Remember formal declarations of war? We’d have one of those in a day (Unless Republicans filibuster it cvuz Obamacare, of course.) Then we would turn the offending country into glass. And nobody would say a word.

And no matter how Muslim-y you think the Mullahs are, I assure you they didn’t get where they are by starry-eyed optimism. They can look over and see the wreckage of Iraq and Afghanistan on either side.

They do not want to end up as cell phone footage of an execution.

No, they want to usher in World War III because they think that Armageddon leads to the end of the world and the return of their 12th (or 11th or Hidden or whatever rubbish) Imam and then they” get to be with Allah and Mohammad in paradise enjoying endless sex and gluttony for all time.

That’s what they say, that’s what they really believe and yes, that’s again, the sad stark reality.

That’s why they cannot be trusted or believed because their apeshit ideas are every bit as horrendously disgusting – and taken every bit as seriously – as those of the Westboro baptists , the KKK and Al Quaidas.

The Christians fundamentalists look forward with gloating glee to their idea of Rapture and seeing us all in Hell. The Jihadist extremists do the same but are even worse because unlike the Christians they are *actively seeking to bring about* their idea of Armageddon and world ending.

You can’t appease or bargain with or sit down and have a beer with people like that. You get two choices – surrender and convert or fight and either kill them or be killed by them. Because the Jihadists won’t have it any other way and won’t think like we do or value life like we do.

I really wish that none of this was true – that the Jihadists didn’t think they way they do – but wishing don’t make it so.

Time they play for is still time. When the time expires, we will do most of the killing, not them.

I’m sure that will be great consolation to all the families who will suffered and die and will make the effects of the war made worse than it could’ve been all much better.

Oh wait. No it won’t. I don’t want us to do the killing or them. I don’t want theer to be any killing or war. But we can’t always get what we want.

We should always aim to minimise the damage and loss of life from wars and someimes that means opting for a short burst of pain and suffering that’s quickly over rather than years of excruitating agony before a final lingering death.

dingojack

Yes Stevo but what does The Sydney Telegraph, or The Northern Territory Times* think? I mean if you’re going for sources that lack creditability, go for gold.

@@

Dingo

——-

* the latter would be only interested in the story if it had giant nawks or a croc (or both)

dingojack

Oh and thanks for the Golda Meir quote, I’ll file that one in the ‘mistakes were made (but not by me)’ and ‘no care, no rsponsibility’ categories.

How about:

Heroes who shed their blood and lost their lives! You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and Mehmets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours. You, the mothers, who sent their sons from far away countries wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well.”

― Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

Dingo

.

steffp

@ StevoR(etc), #28

Its rooted in reality. It is exactly how they think and, yes, we find it strange because it is utterly alien and inhuman to our way of thinking and our culture but second nature to theirs.

“They”, compared to “our way”. What a stupid binary.

So Golda Meir “mistakes were made, but not by us” is “our way”, compared to ” the terrible history of Jihadist homicide-suicide bombers”, which is inhuman? Alyjah Bet anyone? King David Hotel bombing 1946? 1947-1949 civil war? Yishuf? That’s all pretty cherry-picking, StevoR. A bit of mild Herzlism sitting far away on your US Veranda on a Sabbath may be comforting, but closing your eyes to the harsh nitty-gritty on the actual ground is unforgivable.

Calling the other side irrational, not bound by everyday reasoning in matters of existence of their very nation borders de-humanizing, the very tactics of you-know-whom. Nuclear retaliation, as horrible as the concept was, has worked pretty well inasfar as it prevented even the craziest Generals from “nuking” Korea, North Vietnam, Cuba, or your American heart land (the only nuclear bomb dropped on US soil was one of yours, an accident, and didn’t ignite – North Carolina in 1961). But all the time Government propaganda claimed that the Soviets were just about to launch an attack, as they were “not like us”, lunatics. What a world view!

What you fail to see is that (to the military mind) the only way to avoid submission to a nuclear threat is to counter the threat by having a bomb of one’s own. It ratchets up the cost of aggression.

Killing all the “other”, the ones that are “not like us” is a pretty stupid concept. And it doesn’t help at all to project that concept on millions of ordinary, often rational people, who don’t share it.

Dehumanize first, then nuke’em.

colnago80

Re steffp @ 321

A bit of mild Herzlism sitting far away on your US Veranda on a Sabbath may be comforting, but closing your eyes to the harsh nitty-gritty on the actual ground is unforgivable.

StevoR is an Australian who lives in Australia.

steffp is like the appeasers in the 1930s who thought that Frankenberger was a reasonable man with whom one could negotiate. He/she just doesn’t understand that megalomaniacs like him and the Ayatollah Khamenei are beyond reason. The only language they understand is the mailed fist smashing them in the face. And by the way, just for his/her information, the King David Hotel was a legitimate target as it was filled with British officers, unlike the pizza parlors that the homicide bombers of Hamas attack.

steffp

@ clnago80 #32

(1)

I don’t see any difference in Australian or US American verandas, sir. Both countries are over 5,000 miles from the action on the ground, not to speak of possible radiation and fallout.

(2)

He/she just doesn’t understand that megalomaniacs like him and the Ayatollah Khamenei are beyond reason

.

Well, Godwin’s law at work. Combined with a complete psycho-pathological diagnosis. The Ayatollah regime in Iran is still in power after 34 years because, despite all Shiite purity, it acted pretty rational in international relations. Otherwise, with all of the Sunni Muslim World (and the West) against it, they would not have survived. But of course, all diplomacy is for wimps.

(3)

The only language they understand is the mailed fist smashing them in the face.

Well, colnago80, who do you think used “mailed fist” in exactly the same sense as you? (Hint: Hitler’s table talks, Saturday, 5th July 1941) Well, of course that’s only using the same fascist language. Doesn’t mean you’re fascist, of course. No, not as long as you use it to defend Herzlism.

(4)

The “appeasement” argument is historically slant, if used against negotiations in general. The wisdom of what Chamberlain and Daladier decided upon is rightly disputed, but not an argument against any diplomatic action. In my lifetime alone, dozens of conflicts have been solved, and wars avoided.

On the other side, I don’t dare to count how often the US went to war without formal declaration, and had to retreat with a bloody nose. How come that hawks always forget Vietnam, Golf War II, Afghanistan?

(5)

Try to improve your grammar: I’m not a megalomaniac.

steffp

@ Colnago80 #32

the King David Hotel was a legitimate target as it was filled with British officers, unlike the pizza parlors that the homicide bombers of Hamas attack.

Oh, how could I! Maybe I can’t follow you because I checked the list of victims.

91 people were killed, most of them being staff of the hotel or Secretariat:

21 were first-rank government officials;

49 were second-rank clerks, typists and messengers, junior members of the Secretariat, employees of the hotel and canteen workers;

2. The Shiite regime is still in power because of the attack by Iraq. It was quite shaky just before that occurred as numerous assassinations of the Ayatollah Khomeini’s associates had occurred and the military was still heavily influenced by officers appointed by the Shah. The invasion by Iraqi forces caused the population to rally behind the regime against the foreign invader and Khomeini was given a breathing spell during which he was able to purge the army’s officer’s corp of Shah appointees. Thus, unlike in Egypt where Mubarak was deposed by the army, the ayatollah had complete control of the situation. As the late Fulton Lewis Jr. put it, in the Arab world (and in fact the wider Muslim world), when the army tells you to go, you go.

3. I find it interesting that Steffp cites Table Talk as a source of reliable information. That document also claims that Frankenberger professed to be an atheist and badmouthed Christianity in particular, which seems to conflict with the atheist contention that he was a devout Christian, based on his public utterances and writings. I won’t get into the controversy as to the authenticity of that document.

4. Steffp has it all wrong. The issue is not whether negotiations are never in order but the conditions under which they are in order. What Munich demonstrated was that going into negotiations with someone like Frankenberger from a position of perceived weakness is a recipe for disaster.

5. I think it is perfectly clear that the him referred to was Frankenberger.

By the way, the use of the term Herzlism, which seems to be a synonym for political Zionism, indicates that steffp considers the State of Israel to be illegitimate, just like the Government of Iran does. If the State of Israel is illegitimate, then so are all the nations in the Western Hemisphere, all of which were conquered by European settlers.

colnago80

Re steffp @ #35

That’s just the number of people killed. It doesn’t included the injured and those who were registered but not present at the time of the bombing. My information is that the hotel was being used as quarters for British officers, many if not most of whom were, fortunately for them, not present at the time.

dogmeat

Also, FYI, listing points is not the same as rebutting them.

FYI, mindlessly repeating points that have been rebutted over and over again is no longer making a point. Rebutting them yet again isn’t necessary, sarcastic mocking becomes more than adequate.

steffp

@Colnago80, ##35/36

(1)

Let StevoR talk for himself, will you?

(2)

The Shiite regime is still in power because of the attack by Iraq.

Which ended 25 years ago, 1988… And surviving this war – with Egypt, the Arab countries of the Persian Gulf, the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact states, the United States (beginning in 1983), France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Brazil, and the People’s Republic of China supporting Hussein’s Iraq – was in fact pretty difficult.

As for megalomania, it’s not listed as an infection disease…

(3)

I find it interesting that Steffp cites Table Talk as a source of reliable information

Whoah! Impurity here! In fact I googled it and took the first link. Here’s the same story in the Guardian:

What Munich demonstrated was that going into negotiations with someone like Frankenberger from a position of perceived weakness is a recipe for disaster.

Well, that’s not the way the history scholars see it these days. They agree that Britain and France were in fact too weak for war, and besides not at all interested in defending Czechoslovakia. As can be inferred by their exclusion of CZ diplomats from the negotiations, their refusal to accept an offer of the USSR and their blunt ultimatum to CZ, that, in case the Government would not agree to Munich, they’d have to fight the Germans themselves. We’ve had this chain of ifs and hypothetical history already. It all serves as a distraction, to blur the blunt assumption that whoever reigns Iran is like Hitler, and cannot be trusted. I still have to hear an argument why Iran is less trustworthy than that long-time ally, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, with its feudal structures, based on slave labor, an abysmal human rights record, financing terror groups all over the world…

(5)

I think it is perfectly clear that the him referred to was Frankenberger.

That’s what you think.

(6)

By the way, the use of the term Herzlism, which seems to be a synonym for political Zionism, indicates that steffp considers the State of Israel to be illegitimate

What? I wrote that you used fascist vocabulary to defend Herzlism – which in fact is a pretty secular fraction of Zionism. Go get an education. I could have said you defended likud Positions.

I do not question the legitimacy of the state of Israel by personally not being a Zionist…

(7)

That’s just the number of people killed.

Yes, indeed. There were forty-something wounded, most of them local bystanders, hurt by the collapsing building. Legitimate targets…

StevoR : Free West Papua, free Tibet, let the Chagossians return!

@20. Dogmeat : “.. and I’ll have islamophobe BINGO!”

Notes :

I) I was referring specifically to Iran and Syria and their respective dictatorships here.

II) Truth is a defense. You think Iran or Syria can be trusted, that they aren’t seeking war on their terms not ours or that war isn’t inevitable? Well, extraordinary evidence is needed on your part for these extraordinary claims.

III) No such thing as “Islamophobia” exists. That’s a nonsense word made up to ignore the fact that the real distinction here is between the Islamo-realists (like me, people who actually understand what Islam is and how they think and act) and Islamo-gullable-naiveists. (Useful fools who actually fall for the whole “religion of peace” guff despite all the overwhelming evidence otherwise.)

Note : You just disagreeing with me (& reality) ain’t the same as actual rebuttal also FYI.

@27. dingojack

Oh Stevo you’re such a card. Your points don’t need to refuted*, they simply need to be pointed to and laughed at**.

a) To stop Sadddam getting WMDs eh? – too late. He had ‘em and had already used ‘em. How do we know? Because documents explaining who sold the precursors to him, who trained him how to make them, and who trained him how to use them, have been declassified. Wanna guess who his ‘dealer’ was? Hmmm***

An outdated political alliance of convenience with bad against worse at the time.That’s the best you can do?

Realpoliticks is an ugly business, no dispute about that. The Rumsfeld-Saddam Hussein connection is also ancient history with no relevance here -shouldn’t be any disputing that either. Hindsight is wonderful but y’know what makes it hindsight? We don’t know at the time how things will turn out later.

If anything, precedent tell us that we were wrong to trust Iraq with WMDs in the 1980′ thus we’d also be wrong to trust Iran or Syria with ’em now.

@30. dingojack

Oh and thanks for the Golda Meir quote, I’ll file that one in the ‘mistakes were made (but not by me)’ and ‘no care, no rsponsibility’ categories.

How about you think about it and what it implies instead?

Arabs don’t give a shit about human life on their own side,letalone anyone else’s. Their Jewish enemy cares more about their children’s lives than they do – hence the usual Islamist tactics of using their own people as human shields then whinging and exploiting that to death when they do get taken out as adirectresultof theri cowardly, despicable tactics. But, ‘spose you’d rather stick your head in the sand and go “Lalalalalalala can’t hear you!” when actual evidence blows your side out the water eh?

@35. colnago80 & 32. colnago80 : Yes. Very well said and good points made – seconded by me.

Also note the attack on the King David Hotel was one very atypical incident over fifty years ago versus the continual and present day Islamist terrorism against the West and especially the one tiny Jewish nation in existence. (A metaphorical oasis of sanity amidst a desert of vast hateful Islamist Jihadistans which, btw, keep refusing to settle the refugees they created when they urged people to flee so a genocide against the Jews could be completed more easily – or so they’d planned.)

Their culture *does* differ from ours in many key respects – like how the Jihadists view human life versus how Westerners do (see #26 & #28) , how they treat women versus how we do, how their culture is steeped to the core with repugnant anti-Semitism versus how our culture isn’t well, usually, with some FTB regulars being unfortunate exceptions to the rule in this last case apparently.

So Golda Meir “mistakes were made, but not by us” is “our way”, compared to ” the terrible history of Jihadist homicide-suicide bombers”, which is inhuman? Alyjah Bet anyone? King David Hotel bombing 1946? 1947-1949 civil war? Yishuf? That’s all pretty cherry-picking, StevoR.

Umm, yes, it is cherry picking as demonstrated by you right there.

The 1948 Israeli War of Independence when Israel agreed to a partition of the UN Mandate but still got attacked by Arab armies intent on committing genocide. I’m not sure at all how that’s supposed to advance yoru case there Steffp?

The King David hotel thing, well that’s been covered. Funny how you can only find one incident versus the very long list of Islamist homicide-suicide bombings and terrorist attacks. Oh wait, not so much “funny” as just sad and telling of your cherry-picking desperation to paint the Jewish state in a unfairly bad light versus the reality of Israel constantly having to defend itself from those determined to kill every last one of its innocent civilians.

You go think about that and what it says about you. Really. Please.

A bit of mild Herzlism sitting far away on your US Veranda on a Sabbath may be comforting, but closing your eyes to the harsh nitty-gritty on the actual ground is unforgivable.

Hah. As colnago has pointed out already I’m Australian and a day ahead of you as a result. I’ve also shown right here that I’m far more aware of the harsh nitty gritty reality here than you are so that’s none out of however many stupid claims you’ve made right there, mate.

uzza

Steve@ 7 through 40

Just shut the fuck up already.

steffp

@StevoR #40

Geography first – you’re only three hours ahead of my city, Bangkok.

Their culture *does* differ from ours in many key respects

That’s right. The stupid binary meme I used points to the fact that we have a multitude of cultures, not two. There is a great variety in “Western” culture, from wingnut Republican to Socialist positions. The bandwidth of opinion in the Chinese Communist Party exceeds that of the US Senate. Indian Hindu culture differs in just about any item you can think of. (Both of each other and you) For Buddhists, Western culture is careless greedy, and materialistic. They’re all different, and they are all “not like us”. Some of them don’t even have a slaveholder and Red Indian genocide background. Some cultures indeed value human life less than others – they have death penalty, and bad health systems that result in high child bed death rates and low life expectancy. But strange enough, these tend to be cultures that are economically handicapped, so this might be a more likely reason.

So, if you want to compare, compare wingnut to wingnut – their real influence on society is the same in the West and the East.

how they treat women versus how we do

Again, that suggestive “we”. Ask an emergency responder how women in the west are treated on Saturday night. Not all of us are upper middle class. But of course all Fundamentalists, be they Hindutva, Haredi, Salafist, Evangelical or old-Catholic, treat their women as chattel and breeding stock. So do the Saudis, those beloved allies of the “Free world”. But female legal equality is the result of industrialization and two world wars, which required female participation in the labor market. The undeveloped Muslim countries you have in mind don’t have reliable financial institutions (Islamic Banking is a joke), and a labor market that can’t even employ the male half of the population. So there is no societal dynamics towards equality of men & women.

Cherrypicking…

Of course it’s done by all sides involved. But if one’s own history is based on a liberation war in which terrorist acts were committed, then it’s a bit of a stretch to deny the same excuse to guys who feel they, too, fight such a war of liberation. Pandora’s box: once you find liberation wars legitimate, you can’t condemn them…

Of course every government has the right to defend its regime against terrorists. It does not have police rights against an opposition of its citizens or those whom full citizenry is denied. The current tactics in Israel is to confuse terrorism and opposition. Self-defense and oppression are two different things.

defend itself from those determined to kill every last one of its innocent civilians.

Except for Nasser’s ’67 metaphor I can’t see any Palestine organization that intends to build death camps.

I see a lot of guys who – unlike Herzl but like Achad Ha’am – claim a religious motivated right to the Palestine territories (Hamas refers to Caliph Umar’s dedication that Palestine will always be Muslim. Well, the same has been said about “l’Andalus”, today known as Spain). I abhor the automatic antisemitism in major parts of the Muslim world, often by people who don’t know a thing about Israel, and have never ever seen a Jew at all. The gullible, the uneducated, the cannon fodder. The ones that can be made to believe that once everyone believes in Allah, all problems are solved.

In reality, the corrupt elites of the middle east use Israel as the big distraction. If it would not exist, they’d have to invent it. It’s for them now for decades what is “Obamacare” for Republicans.

Their Universities rank bottom, they don’t get any patents, the industry is weak, jobless rate is high, foreign investment almost nil, corruption rife, and justice only to be had for high amounts of money. Which is all their fault. The phase of colonialism is over for 60+ years. The Baath countries nationalized most foreign industry but failed to build their own. A hopeless situation. So a foreign menace like an “imperialist” Israel comes in handy. Thus all the obligatory declarations of solidarity with the PLO, Hamas, whatever.

As for Iran – they’re trying to build a Shiite hegemony. There are relevant Shiite minorities in Syria and Lebanon, but not in Palestine, the Muslim population there is predominantly Sunni. No cooperation between Sunni and Shia Islam, in a few countries they’re locked in sectarian violence (Iraq, Pakistan). So their appeals against the “Jewish state” are largely propaganda – Palestinians are not their clientele.

colnago80

Re uzza @ #41

Hey man, who the fuck are you to tell somebody to shut up? This is Ed Brayton’s blog and thus far he has not seen fit to give StevoR the heave ho. Until that time, StevoR is perfectly free to post comments here. If you don’t like them, don’t read them.

uzza

colnago80

I’m someone who doesn’t appreciate an otherwise decent blog being hijacked by a lot of racism and bigotry when the majority of participants clearly have no use for it. Yes Steve is perfectly free to waste everyone’s time with his bigotry if they want to play, but he is trying to defend a hateful and justifiably unpopular position in the face of overwhelming rejection, and he would do himself and all of us a favor by STFU-ing and go do a little introspection.